NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     boggle - word search game

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     boggle  [-bd]  [-s  seed]  [-t  time]  [-w  length]   [+[+]]
[boardspec]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The object of boggle is to find as many words as possible on
the Boggle
     board within the three minute time limit.  A Boggle board is
a four by
     four  arrangement  of  Boggle  cubes, each side of each cube
displaying a
     letter of the alphabet or `qu'.  Words are formed by finding
a sequence
     of  cubes  (letters) that are in the game's dictionary.  The
(N+1)th cube
     in the word must be horizontally, vertically, or  diagonally
adjacent to
     the Nth cube.  Cubes cannot be reused.  Words consist solely
of lower
     case letters and must be at least 3 letters long.

     Command line flags can be given to change the rules  of  the
game:

     -b          Run boggle in batch mode.  A boardspec must also
be given.
                The dictionary is read from stdin and a  list  of
words appearing
 in boardspec is printed to stdout.

     -d         Enable debugging output.

     -s  seed     Prime the random number generator with seed instead of data
                from /dev/arandom.

     -t time    Change the time limit for each game from the  default 3 minutes
                to time seconds.

     -w  length  Change the minimum word length from 3 letters to
length.

     +          Allow a cube to be used multiple times,  but  not
in succession.

     ++         Allow a cube to be considered adjacent to itself.

     A starting board position, boardspec, can  be  specified  on
the command
     line  by  listing the board left to right and top to bottom,
in lower case.

     Help is available during play by typing `?'.  More  detailed
information
     on the game is given there.

FILES    [Toc]    [Back]

     /usr/share/games/boggle/dictionary    compressed dictionary
     /usr/share/games/boggle/dictindex     dictionary index
     /usr/share/games/boggle/helpfile      online help file

AUTHORS    [Toc]    [Back]

     Boggle is a trademark of Parker Brothers.

     Barry  Brachman,  Dept.  of  Computer Science, University of
British Columbia

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     If there are a great many words in the cube, the final  display of the
     words may scroll off the screen.  (On a 25 line screen about
130 words
     can be displayed.)

     No word can contain a `q' that is not  immediately  followed
by a `u'.

     When using the + or ++ options the display of words found in
the board
     doesn't clearly indicate reused cubes.

OpenBSD     3.6                          August      4,      1997